This blog post is enough to stop women from having kids
Samantha from TemporarilyMe.com writes a post — and her argument is not even as important as the miserable stress that her post conveys. Her argument is that being a work at home mom is not comparable to being a work out of the home mom; I’m not getting involved in this. Who cares as long as you’re earning money. But the details of her life make my blood pressure escalate and shows why many young women would be forgiven to not choosing to have children. A sample:
Working moms. I scoff at the Internet’s idea of a working mom. Sorry Internets, but I do.
I have been a working mom for the better part of three years; and by working I mean dragging my ass out of bed at 4:45am to get showered and dressed, waking my child(ren), getting breakfast going, dropping off at daycare and sitting in traffic ALL to get to the office by 7:30am.
I work through an eight and a half hour day of telephone calls, emails, meetings, reports, proposals, arguments, disagreements while someone with a higher authority, a boss, dictates my time.
After those eight and a half hours, I get in my car to sit in traffic, pick up my kids at daycare, get dinner going, oversee bath time, read stories and put my children to bed.
I see my children for a total of – at the MOST – three hours a day – and most of that time is spent doing chores like the cooking and bathing. I very rarely have the luxury of sitting down and actually interacting with them.
Let’s talk about being a REAL working mom shall we? Not this fluff about working from home because I’ve been there too. I’ve too worked from home, designing, freelance writing, and trying to manage my house at the same time. I was doing what I could to keep us afloat while home with my children.
There is no comparison. None. I don’t care how high up on the blogging ladder you are: working from home is not even in the same realm as being a Working Mother.
Is this what it is? Who is their right mind would sign up for this? If this is what being a working mother is like, why don’t we all just stick with pets?
President and Mrs. Obama, something’s gotta change here! Employers, something’s gotta change here.
Greider on the cost of prosperity
“The Future of the American Dream”
The cost of all our prosperity-
What families, even those who are prosperous, typically lose in the exchange are the small grace notes of everyday life, like the ritual of having a daily dinner with everyone present. The more substantial thing we sacrifice is time to experience the joys and mysteries of nurturing the children, the small pleasures of idle curiosity, of learning to craft things by one’s own hand, and the satisfactions of friendships and social cooperation.
These are made to seem trivial alongside wealth accumulation, but many people know they have given up something more important and mourn the loss. Some decide they will make up for it later in life, after they are financially stable. Still others dream of dropping out of the system. If we could somehow add up all the private pain and loss caused by the pursuit of unbounded material prosperity, the result might look like a major political grievance of our time.
More important than all the other losses is that people are also denied another great intangible–the dignity of self-directed lives. At work, at home and in the public sphere, most people lack the right to exercise much of a voice in the decisions governing their daily lives. Most people (not all) are subject to a system of command and control over their destinies. They know the risks of ignoring the orders from above. Not surprisingly, many citizens are resigned to this condition and accept subservience as “the way things are,” and their lives are smaller as a result. Many find it hard to imagine that these confinements could be lessened, even substantially removed, if economic organizations were informed by democratic principles.
I’m thinking about a question I’m supposed to answer soon on cnn.com: in these times, should we be launching a mission in space to fix the Hubble? And I was thinking about iconic images I’ve seen in the past of early space launches, and how I felt in 6th grade when I heard about the Challenger going down. Those were times when we could all coalesce around something like space travel: watch it all together on TV, mourn the loss of a crew together. Get excited about America’s future together. Now, I’d bet most Americans don’t even know the shuttle is launching because our news consumption is so diffuse. The days of shared experiences around national events feel over. In part because of what Greider discusses (families simply have no time to digest and share experiences like a space launch), in part because of our new media landscape.
Souter wanted his life back
Cross-posted from BlogHer.com:
David Souter is leaving the Supreme Court and it’s exciting to consider whom Obama might appoint as Souter’s replacement. But I’d like to look back for a moment- at why Souter left and what that says to us.
Souter “told friends he looked forward to returning to New Hampshire while he was young enough to enjoy climbing mountains and other outdoor activities.” On NPR, Nina Totenberg reported Souter explaining his discontent: “the workload of his job is such that when ‘the term of court starts I undergo a sort of annual intellectual lobotomy, and it lasts until the following summer when I sort of cram what I can into the summertime.’” For a man to whom reading and thinking is supreme, this is no sort of work life balance.
At Salon, Joan Walsh wrote, “Finally with a Democratic president in the White House, he can go home to New Hampshire.” Walsh’s point is that the putative Republican, faced with a recent stacking of Bush-era mega Conservative appointees, feels safe to leave his spot to a less right-wing replacement. I’m glad Souter waited.
But I was struck by Souter’s justification: he left because he wanted his life back. When powerful people– politicians or corporate executives– leave huge jobs to “spend more time with the family,” we almost automatically assume it’s code for a huge sex scandal in the making or some kind of fraud or looming failure. But a Supreme Court Justice is not subject to the damage of scandal or public pressure; it’s the ultimate tenure. When a Justice leaves, it’s because he or she wants to, or must because of health reasons.
When I suggested that Souter was leaving to seek better integration of work and life, several colleagues wrote back, “but he’s not married and he doesn’t have children.” Indeed, as Brian Williams wrote on his blog, “Souter’s been described as an almost Victorian figure, straining to maintain the lifestyle he prefers while the world changes around him.” Williams is saying that Souter is kind of odd, and that’s why he wanted to escape his extremely powerful but all-consuming job and go home to Vermont. How ridiculous.
This country’s emphasis on work is so insane that we presume only harried parents of young children (usually mothers) want some kind of measure between their work and their personal or home life. That’s ridiculous. Kate Hutchinson writes,
“In my office, women who are single just work their asses off until they have kids, and then comes the work/life balance question.” Really? Single women–or in my case–childless women are just expected to work until they drop? What about time off for reading, yoga, traveling, volunteering, doing things that are personally fulfilling?”
At the Glass Hammer, Cynthia Diaz writes,
“I have been told that putting in extra hours would be expected during a crunch, not a problem. I think everyone has heard that request at one time or another. It is what often follows that is insulting: “After-all, you’re single. You have no responsibilities.” Being single somehow allows my free time to become someone else’s asset.”
But, let’s face it, single women “complaining” is hardly a force for change in our country; usually women voicing objections are discursively constructed to be a force for ridicule. I tried to find some single men writing about the need for more work life integration, but I came up short. Recent studies show men in two earner households feeling more conflict than women about work and life. But it’s still pretty much a taboo subject for many men to discuss publicly, especially during a recession.
The more powerful (and frankly) men we hear from who insist on their right to some kind of integration between their work life and their personal joys the further along we’re going to get. Thank you, Justice Souter. I hope you have a wonderful summer at home.
MomsRising post: Flexible work in the recession
My first post on MomsRising…hat tip to Cali Yost
Maria Shriver announced that we now live in what she calls “A Woman’s Nation.” She wrote on the Huffington Post last week:
“For the first time in our nation’s history, women now represent half of all workers and are becoming the primary breadwinners in more families than ever before. These two facts have far reaching consequences to government, business, faith communities, women and even men. “
The “mancession” means women are gaining economic responsibility for families across income and professional levels.
“For the first time in economic history, the male unemployment rate has surpassed the female unemployment rate. The December 2008 unemployment rate for men was 7.9 percent, versus 6.4 percent for women. The U.S. economy lost 2.956 million jobs in the last year, and a full 82 percent of pink slips have been handed to male workers.”
As Heather Boushey, economist at Center for American Progress put it, “Families will increasingly rely on women’s earnings, which are typically lower than men’s and are less likely to come with health insurance.”
My question is: what impact will the new labor force shift have on women’s ability to negotiate roles at work that allow them to be caregivers? Women in power often have to contend with the “ideal worker” stereotype. We’ve always idealized the hard-striving, dominant man with a wife at home to take care of matters outside the office. Now, as many of those ideal workers are losing their jobs, women have an opportunity to redefine what an ideal worker is. But we have to play it carefully.
A new survey from Cali Yost at Work+Life Fit finds 94% of employees are willing to change their schedule or cut their salary to avoid layoffs, but 47 percent of workers are less likely to voluntarily leave the workforce for a period of time. Women (56%) were significantly more likely than men (40%) to say they are less likely to voluntarily leave the workforce to take care of a child or elder, for example. Does this mean, if women hold the majority of jobs, but are less likely to leave to assume the child and elder care responsibilities they traditionally hold, they’re forced to negotiate with employers to make it work?
Yost’s survey finds that employees are willing to work more flexibly (in the guise of reduced hours) to save their jobs and help their employers reduce costs. She found “nearly 8 in 10 employees would be willing to work a compressed work week, while nearly 60 percent would take additional unpaid vacation days or furloughs (several weeks off without pay). Nearly half would share their jobs with colleagues (48%), or take a cut in both pay and hours (47%). A little more than 4 in 10 would take a pay cut but work the same amount of hours or switch to a project-based contractor employment status (41%). Just under a third say they would take a month or more unpaid sabbatical.”
I wondered, is this desperation under the guise of flexibility, or is it employees being willing to sacrifice money for extra time and flexibility and using the recession as an opportunity to do so? Why do I feel like women would be the first to consider flexible options and a pay cut, and this may not be a great thing for women at work? But I asked Yost about this, and she said,
“For the past twenty years, flexibility such as reduced schedules, sabbaticals, job sharing has primarily been driven by employee-need. What this survey says is employees understand that these same flexible ways of working can also be led by business-need….
“After studying and writing about this issue for over a year, I believe the willingness of both men and women to sacrifice pay and schedule to manage through the recession with their jobs intact is less desperation than pragmatism and shared sacrifice. I see this as an opportunity for flexibility to finally come in from the “nice thing to do, perk and benefit” wilderness and become part of the way the business operates, and the way people manage their work and life in up and down cycles. “
I asked Yost, if she worried flexibility is coming at the expense of opportunity for advancement for women, or is this not a gender issue?
She said, “I think this finding will have ramifications on the advancement of women and will, ultimately require an even more effective use of flexibility in the future… More women will remain employed for longer more consistent periods of time, but the inevitable reality will arise—yes, they are working BUT they need flexibility to continue to care for their families. They aren’t leaving as they might have in the past, so how to we make flexibility really work for everyone.”
Here’s the light at the end of the tunnel part: as more women become breadwinners, our visibility increases and so does our collective bargaining power. Is now the time the ideal worker model becomes less important than the flexible, practical worker?
I don’t know the answer. Would you propose a reduced or flex schedule to your employer right now? Does feel less, or more risky than before?
Parenting and sacrifices and spaghetti-os
This is cross posted from BlogHer, in response to Jory des Jardins’ post….
I was moved to respond when I read Jory’s post questioning if there is ever a right time to have a kid if you’re serious about your career. I recently had a baby. Jory, you write that you fear “the underlying sacrifice that has, time and again, come with the responsibility of children.” I thought I would share with you some sage advice- not my own. This week, a group of women gave me an incredible gift: a shower of their professional and personal advice on how to manage work and home, the love for my husband and for my child. These women work in what’s lamely called the “work life” field.
They work with families, companies, and leaders to create better work+life fit (Cali Yost’s term). One of the women at my shower was Jessica DeGroot, who teaches shared care (or 50/50) parenting and whose work inspired the New York Times magazine piece from Lisa Belkin that you quote. All of the women at the shower work hard to help parents take equal (or nearly equal) responsibility for childcare and work outside the home, what Jessica calls the “Third Path.” Here are some pearls from Sharon Teitelbaum, a career coach and wise woman:
1. “Go with it.” What I took away was that moderation and compromise are the keys to having kids and a career. We don’t talk a lot about moderation in our culture of extreme jobs and super parenting. But it’s how you get through with a minimum of stress.
2. Which brings me to Sharon’s second point: “Spaghetti O’s.” “They’re in a can. You open them.” In short, you don’t need to prepare deluxe home cooked meals or keep an immaculate house. And I guess now you can even buy organic Spaghetti O’s.
3. “Date night”: have one with your partner very often. And also, as Lisa Levey suggested, have a night for your own self often. Take care to keep your own time sacred. In my short time as a parent, this is the biggest sacrifice I’ve noticed. Which leads to the next point…
4. “Create intentional boundaries.” While working and parenting, you need to be deliberate about time commitments, saying yes, and controlling your personal resources of energy, time and attention. So Jory, if you’re a mom, you probably can’t work seven days a week. Some things will have to get let go or delegated. But surely you can live with that? And, to reference Meers and Strober, who write, “every time you correct your spouse’s “errors” or criticize his way of doing something, you’re dealing a blow to 50/50 [parenting].” This too comes back to creating intentional boundaries. If your husband is on baby duty, don’t hover and check to see if he’s doing things right. Leave the house. Take your time (after all, that’s the deal) and let him figure it out.
And one final point from Lisa Levey, which I’ve heard over and over again and which is worth raising. Most new moms are asked, “well, if you go back to work, how much do you need to make to cover childcare”? This question is usually posed to the mother, not the father. Because the mother is often the default parent, childcare is so often thought of as a cost that comes out of mom’s salary. I did it myself. In Lisa’s words, this is a reductionist view. Investing in childcare so mom and dad can work is an investment in the whole family.
On a personal note Jory, I think about the amazing company you’ve helped to build, and which has probably required many sacrifices at times. I, and probably thousands of others who read BlogHer, am in awe of what you and Lisa and Elisa have built. If you’ve managed to birth and nurture an entrepreneurial gamble with grace, imagine what you can do with your child!
Yes, I was supposed to have written this post two days ago, except that every time I sit down to write, the baby seems to have a meltdown. And then, I got turned down for a job I really wanted and I’m wondering if things will ever be the same again. The truth is, life with a child is better than anything I have ever experienced. I can’t recommend it enough. And it makes time for work sweeter too, because it is time for yourself.
About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
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